


Not Quite Single

by duointherain



Category: Captain America (Movies), Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 03:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12786444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: It's nearly a hundred years after the wars. Tech has kept all the boys healthy and young. While on a salvage mission, Duo recovers Steve Rogers. James Barnes has been Heero's colleague for over twenty years. There are a lot of misunderstandings. The fork in chapter two made me laugh. :)





	1. Chapter 1

Not Quite Single

by Max

Disclaimer: I own neither Gundam Wing nor Captain America

"You're right. There is definitely something there," Hilde said. On the bridge of their little salvage craft, she touched the data display, the 3d image of the ice shelf they were exploring.

They were, technically, getting paid to disperse oceanographic sensors for the University of Tokyo. Doing a little salvage on the side was just a perk.

"What'cha think it is?" Duo asked, pulling his wet suit up over his shoulders. His hair was growing out again and was down past his shoulders if it wasn't in a ponytail. Silver touched his temples, metallic and shimmery. Anti-aging technology kept him in peak condition, looking early twenties, at oldest. Anticipating his swim, the gills on the side of his throat opened, tingling pleasantly.

"Early plane, like fuck," Hilde said. While she had always had a couple years on him, it didn't show at all. Her hair was flame red curls now. One eye was completely artificial, though it was green for aesthetics. The eye allowed for a constant flow of high speed data and remote processing when she was in range of their server. "Like really early, maybe 18th or 19th century. I didn't think they had anything this big back then!"

"Ah told you," Duo said with a smirk as he strapped a knife to his forearm. "Think we can lift it?"

Hilde's eyes blinked rapidly for a few seconds. "Yes, still processing. Take five grav lifts with you."

"Will do," Duo agreed, tucking the small blue circles in his tool belt.

A moment later, he left the dive room, through the circular port directly into the ice cold antarctic. In the seconds it took his compensators and gills to completely kick in, he sank in existential euphoria. When he peeled all that he was away, let everything other than his core float away into the dark freezing water, all that remained was a shrine to Heero Yuy. When the chill antarctic oxygen hit his brain, he woke to his current life with a powerful hunger.

Being in the water was weightless and as close to space as his parole was going to let him for a goodly while. It wasn't completely like space though because every movement came with push back from the ocean, which claimed to be bigger and infinitely more powerful than a sarcastic little spacer boy.

He moved through the water as if it were home. The gene editing that had given him gills did make him powerfully at home in the dark water. The compensators that kept him warm only had so much power, or he'd consider never getting out of the water again.

"A lot of ice is gone, just since yesterday," he said, swimming around the pinned craft. "Whoa. Hil, there's guy in there." As the plane had dipped into the the water, from having been frozen solid, things had started to move around

"Corpse," she corrected, "There is a corpse in there. The steel that it's made with says it's from the 1940's. No registered crew or flight plan. There's nothing this big in the missing logs either. This thing is going to be worth a fortune. "

The water wasn't dark to Duo. This ability wasn't due to genetic tinkering, but artificial retinas. So when he swam up to the cockpit, it was easy to study the man floating in the freezing water. Blond, handsome, hot as hell, if you could get past the being dead part. That part was kind of important.

Duo blinked a different set of lens into place and scanned for bio-damage. "Hey, Hil, this dude has no life threatening injuries and extremely minimal cellular degradation. I think we can revive him."

"Then it's not salvage anymore, Duo," Hilde snarled. "This dude has been a corpse for like five hundred years. I didn't hear him putting out any distress calls."

"Come on now, have a heart. You'd want someone to revive your ass if you got frozen."

"I vaguely recall someone having lost his medical license."

Duo rolled his eyes. "Providing someone with first aid is within the scope of my parole," Duo insisted as he opened the cockpit window with a small laser tool.

"You are tipping the balance of that craft It's going to come forward," she warned. "Duo, seriously, it's shifting. Get out of the way.

As the plane shifted, a child's round sled hit the window. Brightly painted in red and blue, Duo took an instant liking to it and grabbed it and the dead dude as water rushed forward.

"Duo! Forget the craft! Move! It will suck you down!"

The guy was, conveniently, wearing a harness which made it much easier to drag him back towards their ship. The sled weighed nearly nothing and Duo wondered if it was some kind of early gundanium. "On that salvage," he said, "I may have found the earliest piece of gundanium."

"You found a weapon," she said, excited.

"Naw, it's a sled, you know like a kid rides down a snowy hill on."

"Right," Hilde said with a sigh. "A million dollar salvage and we get a corpse and a toy. Need I remind you that you go through money like.. well, like a lot of it."

"Yeah, yeah," Duo said, "Come down to the dive room and help me get him inside."

"Oh gross! You can't bring a dead body into the ship."

"Well, I can't just throw it back. Come on! Even if he doesn't revive, he's got to have family."

"Fucking bleeding heart," she growled.

A few minutes later they had him into the dive room. As Hilde examined the sled, Duo worked on his patient. Medical license or not, he still had medical lenses. The dead body in front of him was cold, 29 degrees, and rising. The rising wasn't that odd, Duo reminded himself. The temperature in the dive room and the rest of the ship was steady at 72. But then, right there on the screen he was looking at, there was heartbeat, a very slow heartbeat. "Fuck, Hil, he's got a heartbeat."

"No! Really? Also, this isn't gundanium. I don't know what it's made of, but it's not a sled. It's a shield. Like for combat."

"Yeah," Duo said, rolling his patient onto his side. "And it's getting faster. I don't know what else he is, but he's alive. Go find a weapon, just in case."

Then Steve vomited up water from his lungs. As he drew a full breath, his heart rate kept climbing.

 

<><><>

The alert that Heero shouldn't have been getting, because he wasn't supposed to be stalking Duo, popped up on his monitor. He stared at it, not opening it. If he opened it, he was going to get fired. His supervisor had made that abundantly clear. His fingers tapped lightly on the keyboard.

The subject, that he could read without opening it, read WWII agent located Duo Maxwell. There could be almost anything under that subject line.

James Barnes, whose desk nearly shared space with Heero's desk, sighed. "Heero, are you going to give me feedback on that email before I send it?"

"Yeah," Heero said, even though he hadn't opened his friend's email to read it yet. "You have extensive and personal knowledge of WWII?"

"Yeah, I suppose," James said. "Why?"

"So," Heero said, fingers still resting on the keyboard. "I may have mentioned my ex-husband."

"Only about twice a day," James said.

"Sometimes I get alerts that he's... doing things."

"Things, like sexually inappropriate things?"

"Not usually," Heero said, jaw clenching. He was going to lose his job today. Being a professor could be boring sometimes anyway, but it kept him busy and gave his life purpose. "Usually more like grave robbing and assault."

"Violent. I like violent," James said, smirking. "So you say he's single?"

Heero's blue eyes narrowed.

James he'd up his hands. "I'm just kidding. It is more than evident that you are still in love with this man."

Heero sighed, shoulders slumped. "So these alerts. I'm going to get fired if I open this."

"What's it say?"

"The subject line says, WWII agent located Duo Maxwell. It's probably nothing, but I just feel, worried."

James was around their desks in no time at all. "Open it please. I'll say I did it by accident."

Heero opened it and an image from inside the dive room, of Steve holding Duo by the throat, a foot off the ground appeared, in low resolution.

"Oh my god," James said, pushing Heero out of his chair so he could sit down. "That's Steve Rogers. That's Captain America! We have to go to wherever he is, right now."

Heero hadn't taken his eyes off the image of Duo struggling for his life either. "Yeah."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fork chapter! :)

Not Quite Single 2/?

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing 

Hilde ran to Duo’s room. Their craft was submarine, besides projectile weapons were a violation of Duo’s parole. She grabbed a power pack, a fork from a plate Duo hadn’t put back in the mess, a single protective glove from his floor, and a spool of cabling. Running, she assembled her weapon as she went.

Back in the dive room, Steve’s eyes snapped open.

Duo shivered. “God I love blue eyes.” Duo grinned brightly, his most welcoming and calming smile. Somehow prison had diminished the effectiveness of said smile. “You got a name.”

From Steve’s point-of-view the fish boy in front of him was clearly a member of Hydra. The boy spoke in a rapidly, with some element of squeak and drawl to his words. He seemed to be part machine, but nothing it said made any sense. 

Steve scooted back a bit, unaware that there was a passage to the Antarctic Ocean right behind him and that only not terribly well tested force field kept the water out. It didn’t keep anything in. They had, quite unfortunately, lost a cat that way once. 

Duo grabbed for his arm to pull him to safety. Duo’s grip was much stronger than a slight looking 5’3” dude should be. 

Steve rammed forward, palm striking Duo’s chin, driving them back to the wall. He’d expected to break the poor chimera’s neck.

Duo lived a life of adventure and had broken his neck four times in the last twenty years, so his spine was decently reinforced. Not wanting to hurt the man he was hopefully having a misunderstanding with, he gave him an elbow strike to the temple, which pushed him back, got them to separate for a moment. 

The movement rocked the little ship, as stabilizer energy was redirected to lifting the plane. 

Duo screamed some incomprehensible gibberish at Steve and pointed at the dive portal. That just looked like oil slicked floor to Steve. That was the only way his brain could interpret the strange colors on the floor. 

A small drawer opened in the wall, drawing both their attentions. Duo grabbed a small device, which Steve thought was a syringe. Everything was confusing. His emotions were all over the place and he grabbed the chimera by the neck and slammed him against the wall. 

Hilde skidded into the room, apparently holding a fork in her hand. 

Duo’s eyes were huge, the whites showing as he started to turn blue. 

Hilde clenched her jaw. The charge on the fork’s tines sparked. She lunged at Steve. 

He pivoted, Duo still held by his neck. The fork missed Steve’s thigh and sank into Duo’s ass. Duo howled, suddenly full of energy and he managed to claw his way over Steve’s shoulder like a cat avoiding a bath. The shock disoriented him and he was through the dive portal and into his beloved water in less than a second. 

“Shit,” Hilde said, trying to smile calmingly as the huge man gave her all his attention. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a small boy, messy brown bangs framing his face.

“Junior, got to the bridge, lock the door.” She didn’t take her eyes off the big man. He was dressed so strangely. He fought too well to be some kind of entertainer, but then there was Trowa, so who the fuck knew.

The man spoke, his words almost sounded like English, but like trying to read Chaucer in the original and you’re like that’s not English. He held up his hands, but she wasn’t sure if he was surrendering or if this was some ancient martial art. 

Duo came back up out of the water and now he had his knife in his hand. 

At which point Steve snap punched him in the face and Duo slow fell back though th dive portal. Hilde screamed in real fear, running to the edge to grab at Duo before he sank. 

The little boy stepped into the dive room. He held a glowing sphere. “Please Mister, don’t hurt Uncle Duo. He ain’t graded mah homework yet.”

“Are you human,” Steve asked.

Hilde hauled a limp Duo up with a groan. “Yes, you fucking corpse! Duo’s only trying to help you. I would have left your ass to the depths!”

“Where am I?”

“This is Shady Lane. You’re dressed funny.”

“It’s 285AC! That’s 2477 on the Gregorian calendar. Fuck, I think you might have actually hurt him.” 

“Why is there a fish boy?” He asked as he followed down the hall.

Hilde had Duo over her shoulder, an effort, but not out of her range, it wasn’t like it was the first time. “He’s my best friend and the captain of this craft. Touch him again and I will kill you and make sure no one finds the body.”

The boy ran ahead and pulled out a bed from the wall that maybe still had some blood on it from a previous adventure. 

“Madam, you are the one who stabbed him with a fork.”

“Only because you moved. Sit down. Wait your turn. He’s the doctor and I’m not very good at this.” She reaches up and pulled down a physical screen, which displayed many things that Steve found interesting, 

“I am not sure his heart is beating,” Steve said apologetically. Now he could see how small the fish boy was, he felt badly for having killed him.

“Well, duh,” Hilde said, fingers moving over the controls. “Give me a few minutes.”

The little boy sat down in the storage crate next to Steve. “Mama’s mad at you.”

Steve nodded. If only Bucky could see this now. Fish boy dies of fork puncture...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve plays telephone with Junior

Not Quite Single 3/?  
by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or Captain America.

 

The craft started under the water. James had grave concerns that any vessel appointed like a cruise ship could not possibly be fast enough to catch whatever near pirate ship the infamous Duo Maxwell. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done his own research. Heero and Duo had fought in some long ago war together. He did have trouble seeing the Headmaster of Classical Studies fighting anything more than a tea stain.

While this time period had technology that made Buck Rogers look antiquated, and they thought they’d resolved aging, clearly people still changed, mellowed. Sitting in a black leather arm chair, a glass of whiskey tasting fluid in his hand, he had to admit that he’d mellowed too. While more years had passed where he was in a freezer box, those years didn’t have the impact that two decades of living in peace, among friends had had. 

Heero sat in a matching chair, on the other side of a small table. He was elegant, wearing a suit that wouldn’t have been that out of place five hundred years before. His hair was trimmed neatly, a little bit long in the front, but fashionable and conservative, like a professor of the classics should be. He was a beautiful man on every level that James could measure intellectually, except for this one pocket of his life that didn’t make much sense. 

“So tell me a story,” James said, giving his most casual smile. 

Heero looked up from his tea, served up a reproachful look. “Once upon a time, there was a boy from New York who believed in fairytales and could not be content with the friendships and physical comforts he was offered. Tell me about Steve Rogers.”

“Jesus. Do you have to have everything your way? Is that why you and Maxwell divorced?” Talking about Steve seemed like a bad omen. While it was true that he believed in ‘fairytales’, what Heero frequently dismissed as ‘supernatural’, he was older than Heero and the soul seemed like a very obvious part of a human being to him. 

That morning had started just like any other morning. They shared an apartment, but didn’t sleep together. After making breakfast, James had read the reports, answered a couple of information requests and waited for Heero to return from his run. 

Steve had been no more than a sliver of agony deep in his soul. It’s one thing to love and respect the departed, but to carry on a romantic relationship with the dead can be like living with one foot in the grave. This zombie relationship he had with Heero was fine, great. It was, honestly, better than anything he’d ever thought possible. 

Except.  
Steve.  
Was.  
Alive.

“He was born in New York too. We were boys together. I was always the strong, fast one. He was the one with all the spirit. So what happened to you in your war, making stronger, faster, all that jazz, that happened to him. He was the Heero Yuy of our times.”

Heero’s eyes took on that narrow, calculating stare. 

“The only reason he’d attack Maxwell is that he thought he was being attacked. Your Maxwel is a murderer,” James said, intentionally needling Heero, in the hope of getting some sliver more of information. 

Heero started, sitting up just a tiny touch more, his mouth opening to reply almost before James had even finished, then he let his breath out as he deflated. “Um.”

They’d lived together long enough for James to know full well what one of Heero’s instant denials looked like, even if he didn’t follow through with it. 

“Just help me understand,” he coaxed. “I’ve watched the transcripts of the trial. He has always maintained his innocence.”

Heero set his tea down, stood up, and walked out of the main cabin. 

“UH uh,” James called after him. “I think you’ve made an error.”

The door slammed. James sipped his faux whiskey. Now all he had to do was figure out how to overcome the high odds that Captain America thought being homosexual was a sin. How did you start that conversation... “So, see, Steve, everything we thought we knew in 1941 was wrong.”

Not to mention that if Steve had frozen for that long, he was still only twenty-one. James leaned back in the chair, a hand over his mouth, emotion swelling. The last time he’d seen Steve, they’d both been adults, soldiers, but now twenty-one seemed no more mature than a baby.

<><>

 

Breath came back in a wheeze and then a fountain as water coughed back up. Duo’s back arched and Hilde rolled him over where he spit more water.

“Uncle Duo is gonna be angry at you too,” Duo Jr. said, crossing his arms, like he was going to be mad too. 

“I wouldn’t blame him in the least,” Steve said, nodding. “I did hit him pretty hard. Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“Yeah,” Junior said sagely. “Do you like Weables?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”

A little sphere hung like a charm from his wrist. He held his wrist so it balanced there, then pinched three fingers and a thumb over it before drawing it up and expanding it. He made another hand gesture that Steve was sure had meaning, but didn’t think he could reproduce it if his life depended on it, which, given the circumstances, he thought it just might. A moment later, a small animal ran around in the boy’s palm. 

It was orange with blue ears and a poodle pom tail that swayed like a tiger’s tail. “There here’s Memphis! He’s my favorite, but I’ll give you SnowCone.”

It seemed like a very good idea to cooperate, to be as friendly as possibly. “Why thank you so much! Snow cones have always been some of my favorite things, especially in summer.”

Even with the computer still translating, still modifying the very air waves between them as they spoke, the boy still looked like he didn’t understand everything Steve just said. 

“Okay, so wake your port?”

“Excuse me?”

The boy pointed to the now marble sized white sphere on his bracelet. “Yer port!”

“Oh I’m sorry. I don’t have one of those.”

“Junior! What are you doing?” She was mostly paying complete attention to getting Duo’s vital signs where they should be.

“Nothing,” he said, giving Steve as conspiratorial look. He touched his little white marble, made another hand gesture then pulled second of the same size from the first. “Here ya go. You gotta make contact to someone to activate it though, someone on the network already. 

Steve stared at the little marble in his palm. It felt like a marble, smooth and heavy. “How do I do that?”

“Mostly grownups wear’em in their ears, so just set it like right here,” he shoved his little finger in his ear, “And say, ‘Call ... ‘ you know whoever you wanna talk to... anyone. It don’t with Santa. I just got some grumpy old dude who sounded like Uncle Quatre.”

Some things never change. He’d played telephone with lots of cute kids when he was doing the entertainment tour. Kids always have more imagination than sorrow. It must be good to be a kid. 

So he put the little marble in his ear and much to his surprise, it kind of poured itself in, fitting perfectly to him. There was someone he’d longed to talk to, someone that he had thought of every moment since he couldn’t talk to him anymore. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Hello? Who is this?” James answered, irritated to get an initiating call. He gave historical lectures fairly frequently and college students always wanted to offer him things he didn’t want. 

“Bucky?” Steve stood up, head spinning, breathing so fast that air got thin. “Bucky Barnes?”

“No one calls me that anymore. Who the hell are you?” 

“It’s me. It’s Steve. Are we dead?”

“Oh god! Steve! I’m on my way! Don’t fight with Duo anymore. Just wait. I’m coming to get you!”

“You’re alive? What year is it?” 

“I’m alive. The year doesn’t matter. Promise you won’t do anything rash and you’ll wait for me?”

 

“I’ll wait for you....”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero and Bucky arrive... it probably could have gone better.

Not Quite Single 4/?  
by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

 

Duo’s head hurt. That was a pain he already missed having forgotten. Pressure on his chest, throbbing angry muscles in his neck both added up to Hilde needing more medical lessons, no matter what she said. With a groan, he rubbed his hands over his face. “Merlin, adjust compensation and give me a damage report.”

“Compensation has been manually turned down. Do you wish to override?”

“Fuck yes,” he said, forcing his eyes open, even though he knew that was going to send bright shiny stabbies into his brain. The stabbies didn’t follow up on his fears, but he did find Junior sitting on his chest, lightly stabbing him with a fork. “Uh.”

“Is it right?” Junior asked, holding up the fork with all the threat a five year old who’d never killed anything more than a hotdog could manage.

The compensating system had already erased his headache, but Duo didn’t think that was going to make the day all better. “Depends on who you’re asking. Moralistic questions usually depend on who gives the answer.”

“What’s moral istic mean?”

“Uh, ideas about right and wrong. What is it you want to know?”

Junior held the fork in both hands, the tines resting on Duo’s bare chest and the boy sighed as if he were a sage king from a bygone era. “Are you my daddy?”

“You gotta be real precise with questions sometimes, Junior. Do you mean did I contribute a significant amount of my own personal DNA to you or do you mean was I sleeping with yer mom? Cuz she’s definitely your mom. She gestated you internally.” 

“Uh,” Junior said, laying down on Duo. “I want you to be my daddy.”

Duo rubbed his back before running fingers through his long brown hair. “I’m your uncle and I will always take care of you. I’ll always be here for you.”

Junior grabbed a hold of the end of Duo’s hair. “Did Mama steal you?”

“People can’t be stolen,” Duo swore. “Your mom is my best friend. Where did you hear that yer mom stole me?”

“Profert Yuy was screaming it. I thought you and Mama were gonna be the maddest, but then Profert Yuy and Bucky came onboard.”

Duo sat up a little, brushed off feeling dizzy, “Yuy? You mean some guy, a little shorter than me with bright blue eyes and kinda looks a little jumpy all the time?”

“He had blue eyes,” Junior said. “He said he was angry because you were my dad. I want you to be my dad.” 

“You have my name and I love you very much. I never met my parents. I don’t even know if I got parents or if I was a commercial project. Besides, having an uncle is way better than a dad. I choose to take care of you cuz I want to. You do got a lot of my genetics and when you’re older, I’ll show you, okay?”

“Okay,” Junior said, arms around Duo’s throat holding on even as Duo threw the sheet back. Under these circumstances, a pair of pants was supposed to be left at the foot of the bed. Hilde had clearly been distracted. Irritated, he grabbed up the sheet and wrapped it around himself like a toga, without disturbing the boy sitting on his hip. 

He might have been stomping a little on his way down the hall. Then the hall was blocked and he found himself looking up at a taller brunet with brown eyes and an aura of innocence that just didn’t sit well in that moment. “Who the fuck are you?” 

“James Barnes,” the man said, holding out his hand to shake. 

Duo took a deep breath through his nose, lagged the server with molecular processing, and smiled like a viper. “May I ask,” Duo said with artificial politeness, “How long you have been on a deeply intimate basis with my husband?”

Now there were things that Bucky could have said. He could have pointed out that he had been and would always be in love with Steve Rogers and that anything that happened that wasn’t with Steve was just fast food cookies. He could have denied all knowledge of said relationship and suggested that Duo’s recent injuries might be messing with his senses. He could have mentioned how Heero spoke of Duo every day and was clearly in love with him and that Bucky sincerely hoped they would find a way to mend their relationship. What he actually said was, “Don’t you mean ex-husband.”

He regretted it before the words were even out of his mouth. Heero was ungodly strong and Bucky could completely see how in a war situation Heero could be quite effective. The man he was now sharing what he realized was a very small hallway with never make a good soldier. The hair stood up on the back of Bucky’s neck. The little boy didn’t even seem to respond to the look of ravenous malice on that pretty face, but just clung to him, sucking his thumb. Then the boy couldn’t see his caregiver’s face. Nothing he’d encountered since waking had been terrifying. As he thought about it, he didn’t want Heero to be near this man. This man was death incarnate. 

“Is that so,” Duo asked, voice deep, words slow. 

Junior looked up then, thumb still in his mouth, “Uncle Duo?”

“It’s okay Chibi-Mouse,” he said with a warm and adoring smile.

The sudden shift in mood made Bucky seriously suspicious that the man was insane. Fuck nuts, airlock broken, insane. Yup.

“I just remembered today is Thanksgiving!”

“I want pie,” Junior said. 

“And pie there shall be,” Duo declared, shoving himself past the 5’9” hall block in his way. 

When Bucky ran a hand over his forehead, he realized he was sweating. This was just what he didn’t need, to be on a tiny submarine with an insane person. God, no wonder Steve tried to kill him. Steve always had good instincts. 

Duo’s room, and his pants, were on the other side of the main room. Hilde had her chair, arms crossed, angry and sulking. The great blond corpse sat in Duo’s seat, right in the middle, by the table, palms together, like he was going to say something soothing and make everything alright, at any moment now.

Heero sat there in the guest chair, shoulders slumped, wearing tweed with a trim haircut and a fashionable narrow tie. He looked up at Duo, the first time they’d seen each other since the trial and his face softened, the corners of his eyes lifting, his very faint and genuine smile.

A tension that Duo hadn’t counted melted away from him, years melted away, and suddenly life was more than just finishing missions and being good to the kid. 

Junior wiggled down and ran to his mom. Duo held up his hand, wiggling his ring finger, to show that he still wore the black wedding band.

Heero held up his hand, revealing his matching band.

Giddy, Duo turned to Hilde with a huge grin on his face. “So. Today is Thanksgiving. Can you set up the processors to make a decent meal?”

“But it’s March....” 

“I want pie,” Junior said, head in Hilde’s lap, thumb still in his lap.

“It’s Thanksgiving,” Duo said firmly. 

He adjusted his sheet and strode to Heero. For just a moment he stood there, Heero looking up at him. Duo reached out and touched Heero’s neatly trimmed hair, for a moment missing the wild mess it had been the last time they’d been near each other. Then he leaned over and touched his lips to Heero’s. At first, all he could think about was that other man’s lips on Heero’s, but then that melted away and he just wanted to stay there with Heero forever. 

It was just lips to lips, but Duo only pulled back must a tiny bit. “If I apologize for that murder, will you take me back?”

“If you say you are sorry you killed that man and that you won’t do it again, all is forgiven.” Heero pleaded, so much emotion in his eyes, his palm pressed against Duo’s heart, feeling his heartbeat. “Please.”

Duo’s face twitched, lips tightening. “I didn’t kill him and that should be enough for you.”

Heero closed his eyes and turned his head away, his hand falling to his side. 

“Stay for dinner before you go. There’s gon’be pie.”

Duo strode towards his room with his head held high.

Junior pointed at Heero. “No pie!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're not my real Daddy...

Not Quite Single 5/?  
by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

 

Junior pointed at Heero with a still chubby little finger. “NO pie!” 

With that little finger pointing at him, Heero felt profoundly uncomfortable. The child clearly had Duo’s genes and Heero felt a profound moment of sadness that this was the first time he was meeting this child. He looked just like what Heero imagined a baby Duo would have looked like and it rushed his nervous system with pleasant endorphins. 

That accusing finger hung in the air for a moment, then went into the boy’s mouth. His head on his mother’s lap, he glared angrily at Heero. Under that judgement, for the first time, Heero wondered if he’d done something wrong. 

Acting from his heart, he rose and went down the hall to the private rooms. By the time he’d reached Duo’s door, he was certain of what he wanted to do, to say. 

As he lifted his hand to knock, the door jerked open and an angry, very grown up Duo stared back. 

“We were just fucking kids when we got married. If you changed yer mind, we should just get divorced! If you don’t believe what I say, why ya wanna be married to me?”

Heero’s eyes widened. “I was coming to apologize and beg your forgiveness, actually. You are right. Your word is enough for me. I’ve been stupid and stubborn.”

“So you don’t want a divorce,” Duo asked, still giving him the eye, though his expression was softening.

“Duo,” Heero said gently, regretting even more having let himself be out of Duo’s life. “We divorced right after the verdict, before you started serving your sentence, to protect my security clearances. I sent the papers to Hilde’s place. We’ve been divorced for twenty years.”

“What you mean we’re divorced,” Duo screamed. The scream echoed through the little craft, shaking it like being hit by a big wave. 

Heero staggered and caught himself with a hand against the wall. Face pale, Heero said quietly, “You signed the paperwork.”

“The FUCK I did!” Duo pushed by Heero and back into the main room. “HILDE! Did you sign paperwork on my behalf?”

At this point, his hair was a static storm around his face, sparks of purple lightning dancing from end to end. Wearing just a grey tee-shirt and loose black sweatpants, the cloth tried to pull from his body, frying with static electricity. 

“Yes!” She snapped back, standing up and getting his face, “ See how you are when you’re upset I thought it would upset you!!”

“You thought it would upset me,” he roared back mockingly.

Bucky handed Steve a cup of cappuccino that he’d brewed on a nice machine that he’d had sent down from Heero’s transport craft.

Steve took the cup, but his eyes never left Duo, whose eyes were beyond glittery and all the way to demonic glow. A group of translucent people stood around him in a kind of protective encirclement. “Is this some new kind of technology?” Steve held onto his coffee, tightly, then looked at Bucky. His face softened and his heart swelled to see Bucky with him and smiling at him. “Are you sure we’re not dead? I wouldn’t mind so much, as long as I’m here with you.”

“We’re not dead,” Bucky promised, “I’m pretty sure the people around Maxwell are ghosts. He has, on multiple occasions, made claims to being the God of Death. I just thought he was psychotic. Which he might also be, but I’m going to give him the God of Death, given his fireworks and companions.”

“There is only one God and he does not look like that. Are we about to be dead?”

“No, Heero’s not upset yet. I watched Heero disarm a nuclear warhead with a screwdriver and a bottle of nail polish remover.” 

“What’s a nuclear bomb?” Steve asked.

“Uh, I’ll explain after the drama. This is interesting to me.”

Hilde drew her hand back to give Duo a slap across the face, but Heero caught her hand. She struggled, looked at Duo pleadingly. “Are you going to let him lay hands on me?”

Heero held up his hand with his wedding ring. “The divorce was paper only. I’ve never taken off my ring. Ever. I love you.”

“You do,” Duo asked, the snapping lightening melting to a grape rain, rolling down his face like tears.  
“I do,” Heero promised. “We will work everything out.” 

“Okay,” Duo said before collapsing, going down like a deflated holiday decoration. 

Heero let Hilde go so he could grab Duo. 

Steve took that moment to brush the back of his hand over the back of Bucky’s hand and then to smile like he was innocent and nothing happened. 

Junior took hold of the hand of the little girl sitting with him, the tip of his braid sparkling with violet light. He sighed. “My real dad says he’s gonna kill you all.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve: "I wish whiskey worked for me. Now would have been a perfect time."   
> Bucky: *lights up* "Oh we can make that work. I'll mod some especially for you!"

Not Quite Single 6/?

by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or Captain America, or Ghost Wars or Supernatural. 

 

“This is your fault, you know,” Hilde said, following Heero as he carried Duo back to the med bay. 

Heero looked at her over his shoulder as he laid Duo down. For all that the academic world could chaff and restrict one’s experience, by following the social rules one could achieve a high degree of stability and peace. What it didn’t provide was the vivid experience of being alive that being near Duo Maxwell provided. “Okay,” Heero said, not disputing that any unspecified outcomes were or weren’t his fault. If murder was going to be something that Duo and he allowed in their relationship.. and he stopped his thoughts. Duo said he was innocent and no matter what the evidence said, Duo was innocent. 

However, the urge to snuff out an enemy came back now as if it had never been away. “You’re right. It is my fault. I was jealous and frightened. I thought you’d be better for him, because I couldn’t understand why he was still struggling with his past, if I was good for him, if my love made a difference for him.” With a sweep of his hand, Heero activated the medical services computer, then swung it around so Hilde was the subject.” Why does your body show no signs of having been pregnant?” Anger and suspicion edged his words, as her data populated the fields, a look of horror spread across Heero’s face. “Oh my god.”

Hilde’s smirk was tight lipped, smug. “You’re the first one to figure it out. The scanner is set to mask my DNA when Duo ran it. So much effort to fuck that tight ass and I never even got close. Do you have any idea how much work I put into this project?” 

Smiling pleasantly, eyes locked on ‘Hilde’s’, Heero’s fingers searched for the shielding buttons on the med table. 

“The buttons you’re looking for aren’t there. I removed them years ago, but don’t worry,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her. “I’d never hurt him. He is going to love me, just like he loved you, because next time, I’m going to be you.”

“I don’t think you understand love,” Heero said, fingers fluttering over the medical controls, trying to give Duo a shot of adrenalin that would wake him. It was really hard to do adjust without looking at the panel, and while he was 92% sure he had it right, he couldn’t commit and send the meds without a higher surety rate. “What about the child?”

“The child is entirely Duo’s fault,” ‘Hilde’ said, moving away from the door as James banged on it. “I am going to need your skin.”

Heero backed up slowly moving towards the supply cabinet. “I’m going of using it, sorry.” 

“Yeah, they all say that. Just thinking, this is the best thing for Duo. I’ll focus on him, not my work. I’ll make him happy, and he’ll think it’s you.”

“I can see how you think that would work out well,” Heero said. It was just an old instinct to reach for a pistol at the small of his back. “So you’re clearly not Hilde. Is she dead?”

“No, she’s not dead. Human technology lets me freeze my donor these days,” Not Hilde said, closing on Heero slowly. “I’m Mercury.” 

Lips tight, blue eyes narrow, as an eyebrow arched. “As in the Roman god of tinkering? Why on Earth would you want Duo Maxwell?”

Mercury’s face rippled, like an old timey tv with poor signal. “He’s a banshee. As the last gods, we were meant to be together.”

“Uh,” Heero said, nodding as if he accepted that as fact, while moving smoothly forward, fist rising and impacting Mercury’s face with enough impact to move a nose back by an inch, bone crushing pent up rage. “I don’t believe in gods.” 

Just the door, when the door wouldn’t give to shaking, Bucky started tugging at his fingertips. 

“Let me try,” Steve said, wanting to be useful and punching something had a lovely appeal in that moment. 

“It’s reinforced and structurally relevant. Give me just another moment.” As he spoke, he pulled the skin from his left hand like a glove. 

“Oh God,” Steve said, eyes wide. 

Bucky gave him a wink, a wicked grin. He held up his arm, wiggling the silver fingers. “You like it?”

“What happened?”

“I got it from the Russians, but it’s had a few upgrades. Watch this.” Bucky said, wanting to show off as he placed his palm against the door. After a little over a second, the door began to slide open. “Punching is archaic.” 

“Oh,” Steve said.

So there was Mercury, face convex to how it should have been, red lines of blood trailing down to soak into Hilde’s tee-shirt, fist just connecting to Heero’s face, as it turned in slow motion, a tooth flying free. 

Steve held Bucky’s ‘glove’ gently in both hands as he watched the punch play out, spinning Heero. The energy from the spin was already being channeled into Wushu Butterfly kick aimed at Mercury’s head. The energy of that impact sent Mercury’s head flying like a soccer ball, but the body didn’t fall. 

“Oh my god,” Steve said, holding Bucky’s ‘glove’ tightly over his heart. “He’s killed the woman!”

 

Heero skidded to a stop, still in fighting stance, arms up, legs spread, as the headless body made another run at him. “Containment would be helpful,” he shouted. 

James/Bucky nodded making a hand motion with his metal hand and a screen appeared. He swiped and tapped at it, until a small golden sphere appeared above the back of his hand. Another hand motion and the sphere few at the now headless woman, growing as it it her to envelop her completely. 

Heero vaulted the single med table, right through the translucent screens and served the head into the sphere as if he were ready for a really intense game of volley ball. The head passed into the sphere and rolled around on the inside for a few cycles before the creature caught it and put it back on its shoulders. 

“We probably should have contained that separately,” James/Bucky said, looking at Heero, but reaching back towards Steve to get his glove. When the glove was not forthcoming, he turned to see Steve with his still warm skin glove pressed over the lower part of his face, those big blue eyes just as wide as they could get. “It gets better. The technology advances took me by surprise too.”

On the verge of tears, Steve held out a warm skin glove out his lower lip sucked up under his upper lip. All adult reasoning was just gone. “Don’t like this.” 

“Your boy is so articulate,” Heero said, moving back to the medical console to work on stabilizing Duo.

“At least mine is sane and not prone to static electricity,” James snapped back, guiding Steve to the same bench he’d been on earlier. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I rented us a place in Brooklyn. You’re gonna love Brooklyn now. It’ll be like old times. Oh and Heero, I’m moving out. Thanks for having me for so long.”   
“But I,” Steve said, feeling completely overwhelmed.

“Sounds reasonable,” Heero said, focused on a 3d representation of Duo’s internal organs. Micro bots attended to the internal bleeding, to a stress fracture in a couple of ribs, but Heero pointed to another rather long balloon like organ. “James, if you could, for just a moment, give me your opinion on this organ. What does that look like to you?”

James/Bucky was just pulling his sleeve down over his very normal looking left arm again. “Be right there. I think Steve could use something to relax too.” 

“I’m fine,” Steve squeaked, as he watched Mercury lick the inside of the containment sphere, his head not quite on right, “I’m fine.” 

“Yeah,” Heero agreed, tapping on a different screen to generate the medication.

Once James could see the screen, he did a double take, eyebrows shooting up. “That’s a uterus. Your boy is seriously not normative.”

Steve who had come to look at the screen, nodded. The room was starting to go too white. “It’s too bad whiskey won’t work. I feel like now might be a perfect time for a whiskey, if it would work.”

“Oh, well,” Bucky said with a grin “We can mod that. I’ve wanted to get your ass drunk for a long time.”

“Get a room,” Heero teased, friendly, giving James a small smile. “Homosexuality is acceptable in this time and society.”

Steve’s face turned Christmas red. “I’m not.”

“Well, I so am,” Bucky said, giving Steve another wink.

“Oh.”

Then there was a loud knock on the outside of the submarine, a sound that echoed through the little craft.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can a kiss make the world right?

Not Quite Single 7/?

by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or Captain America. The Roman pantheon is not copyright protected. Dr. Strange is also not my property. Neither are the Winchester Brothers, whom I’m not saying are going to show up, but if they did, Ima blame that it’s November and I’m just trying to have a good time, because if there’s anything November needs, it’s really a good time. 

Note: I apologize for any missing words or other inelegant expressions. I shall strive to do better, but I will hope you may find some pleasure in sharing my story with me, even if I fail in that regard. 

 

So there they were, standing in the med bay. Duo lay on the table, his breathing rough and all kinds of lights flashing that Steve did not understand. The little boy was climbing up on the table, while Heero wasn’t looking. Heero looked pale and haggard, heart broken in a way that made Steve just want to clasp his hand and promise everything would be fine. He didn’t know it was going to be fine though. He didn’t really understand any of this. 

Bucky, who it seemed now liked to go by James, wasn’t dead, and he was now part machine, and seemed quite comfortable with all of this, and Steve suspected, much to his discomfort on several levels, was in possession of intimate knowledge of this blue eyed bossy know-it-all.

Then there was the boy’s mother, which if he were being honest, was well beyond his tolerance for deviancy. Just like Red Skull, she had shed her skin, as well as her clothing, which was mightily uncomfortable. She was now held in some kind of large jar made of energy and was screaming about what he knew not as the jar kept her sound in. 

On top of that, the Rapture may have started because the ship seemed to be calling to the dead. Translucent and slightly blue, they pressed around so that if they’d had physical presence, one would not have been able to move. 

Heero and James seemed quite content to discuss the issues among themselves, which was wrong in so many ways. How did they not know he was the leader? It was as if things couldn’t get worse, when a hand quite firmly and purposefully grabbed his left buttock cheek. His mouth dropped open, back arching as to pull away from the touch. He might have squeaked just a bit, because Bucky turned to look at him with concern. Steve swallowed and spun around. 

His mouth only fell open more. The woman wore some kind of draping sheet, her hair done in very fixed and orderly curls. Soft and curvy lips smiled as she winked at him. The color filled in on her form, making her possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.   
“Ego sum Julia Augustus,” she said before brushing a bit of pink tongue against her lip suggestively. 

Bucky threw an arm over Steve’s shoulder, wagging his finger at the pretty Roman ghost, “Landica,” he said, drawing the word out, making sure she knew exactly what he meant. “This one’s mine.”

Her mouth dropped open and color flashed through her cheeks before she disappeared completely. 

Bucky’s fingers caressed Steve’s cheek guiding his head to the side so they were facing. His fingers felt warm and finger like, nothing like the metal that Steve now knew was under the skin. Their eyes met and a wholly different kind of electricity fluttered through Steve’s belly. Bucky’s lips were thinner, darker than the woman’s and he thought he’d slide towards them. Bucky’s fingers lingered on his cheek and it started to settle in that he was really alive, that they had this moment together, when he’d never thought there would be so much as a single more second. Then Bucky was closing the space between them. 

His breath held and his thoughts raced, about how this couldn’t, wouldn’t happen and how Bucky must know the world better and maybe they were going to die anyway. Maybe they were already dead. Maybe this was heaven. When Bucky’s lips touched his, a soft brush of skin, firm and aggressive, everything that was good, proper, shy in Steve evaporated. Being so polite and patient had only been possible because this hadn’t been possible and nothing else had the color this did. His arms went around Bucky, holding him tight, close, as if all the warmth in the world were in this one body, the being of his best and dearest friend who he could never put at risk with such sin, but now he needed this warmth, needed it so bad that Hell itself didn’t matter. His fingers sank into Bucky’s short dark hair and he held him, his tongue pushing forward into the warmth of Bucky’s mouth. 

Everything good, everything bright, everything worth having was right there in that room and if that was the only moment, then that’s what it was. Bucky’s tongue moving against his was what words had never been. 

When the kiss broke, Steve’s wet lips put kisses to Bucky’s face, drinking in the warm aliveness of his skin, his scent, his being. “I love you! I have always loved you. Oh God, please forgive me!”

Bucky framed Steve’s face with his hands, pinning him long enough to look into his eyes. “I love you too. Everything is going to be okay.”

“What’s going on?”

At the same moment, Bucky and Heero both answered.

“Mutants.”

“Aliens.”

“That makes no sense at all,” Steve said.

“Some things don’t have to,” Bucky said.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo has some time in Purgatory.

Not Quite Single 8/?

  
  


by Max

 

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing, Captain America, but my interpretation of the deities are mine.

 

Note: Middle English usage is not academically correct and is used mostly for fun, like pretty much everything else in this work.

  
  
  


Being filtered back into him, but no more coherently the swirl of leaves in a storm. Little bits of self stuck and clung, until he was himself and could feel the ground under bent knee, the gravel under his palm. 

 

Thoughts went off in his mind like popcorn. Dying twice in the same day was fucking epic. This is not a video game! Could he use a temporary insanity defense if he murdered Heero for divorcing him, if he did it really fast? God, the sound of Heero’s voice was what joy was made out of.

 

Thoughts about Hilde and skinwalkers though, that was just burned kernels. He didn’t want any part of that.  It wasn’t like it wasn’t going to be there in a little bit. 

 

So he just settled into his body, feeling the gravel against his palm, the sharpness through his jeans. It was so damn galling to be dead again. It wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong either! He’d helped some poor dead dude only to have Heero show up with his boyfriend and give him what seemed to be a heart attack. If he hadn’t passed out, maybe temporary insanity might have been believable. He pushed against the pavement and plopped down on his ass. 

 

How in the hell did Heero ever think he’d just sign divorce papers? That was the dumbest shit ever. Hands over his face, he felt the shadow over him rather than seeing it. So, as it turns out, there were a lot of fuckers in Purgatory. He hadn’t, and didn’t plan to, spend enough time to really understand everything. 

 

“Hello, Duo,” a gentle voice said. 

 

Purgatory, it turns out, was a lot like Earth. As the guy next to him sat down there were all the normal little sounds of someone moving, of rough cloth brushing against skin, of gravel being disturbed. 

 

There were differences, of course. One could look in any direction and it was all the same, like one giant gray gravel driveway disappearing into a gray ass sky. The environmental controls weren’t as broken as the were on Earth though. It was never cold, never hot, and he had yet to be rained on in Purgatory.  Leaning back, he stretched his legs out. “Hey, Francis.”

“What bringest thou unto this realm again so soon?” The man was slight with a thick brown beard and no hair on top of his head. It was a strange balding pattern, but Duo had never called him out about it. A pretty white dove sat on the man’s shoulder, undisturbed as he offered Duo a wedge of golden cheese.

 

“I found out mah fuckin’ husband divorced me and mah heart just stopped,” Duo said pressing a hand to his chest and taking artistic liberties with the story. “Bastard brought his new boyfriend into my house. Someone had to die and apparently mah heart thought it was me.”

 

Francis stared at him with wide brown eyes, nodding in sympathy. “Wilt thou be staying for some period of time then?”

 

“Probably not. Heero’s damn good with medical tech. He’ll have me breathing again in no time.”

 

“Oh such despair,” Francis said, setting his hand on his chest in sympathy. “Love hath many hearts unmade.” 

 

“Yeah,” Duo said, sitting up a bit more and accepting the bit of cheese. “So how ya been? Did that sheep stay around? You get it to talk?”

 

“Verily,” Francis said, “Though she has passed forward unto God’s gentle hand not more than some time hence. My home has no quiet.”

 

Duo leaned his head, chin tucked, as he gave Francis a mock stern look. “Did they fuckin’ come back.” 

 

“Verily so,” Francis said with a great sigh. “They carry on so. I’d move my home, but what if friends were to come by and not find me.”

 

“I so get that,” Duo nodded. “You want me to run’em off for a while again?”

 

“Wouldest though mind over much? I would offer you my most abundant and heartily felt gratitude.”

 

“No problem,” Duo said, jumping to his feet and holding out his hand to the other man. “If Heero has really left me, can I just come live with you?”

 

Francis reached out to Duo’s hand and tugged on a red string that was only faintly there until he tugged on it. “Remember that the Moon said you were bound forever.”

Duo sighed, finger brushing over his wedding ring and the red string which were both on the same finger. “Well, let’s go take care of your pest problem.”

 

That was another difference between Purgatory and Earth. On Earth, you had to walk between places. In Purgatory, you just blinked.

 

Francis’ place was made of stones held together with mud and topped off with bundles of dry grass. Why didn’t turn into a kiln every time he lit a fire, Duo did not know. He expected if he’d tried to make a shelter of mud and grass during the war, not only would Wu have died of laughter, he probably would have barbequed himself. There were animals everywhere around Francis’ place too, all the animals souls that weren’t ready to cross completely over just kind of hung out here. 

 

A lion walked up and head butted Duo as they made it down the path. Duo ruffled his mane. “Hey Spot,” Duo said, “Still didn’t catch Atticus.”

 

The great big cat kind of rolled its eyes, the big mouth tensing up a bit. 

 

“You’ll get him, just keep after it.” 

 

“Don’t encourage him,” Francis rebuked. “He’ll never catch the gladiator that killed him. There hasn’t been a roman around here in so long I can’t even measure.”

 

“Well, time’s weird here. You can never tell,” Duo said giving the big lion another head scritch before running to catch up with Francis. “How will he move on if he can’t bit the guy?”

 

“Forgiveness,” Francis said, turning and smiling like the saint he was, “heals many things.”

 

“I guess,” Duo grumbled. 

 

As they came around the other side, Duo slowed, a hand pushing his bangs back as he stared at the huge structure that hadn’t been there the time before. It had great big old columns, some kinda marble floor with pictures made with little bitty stones and actual blue sky just over the top of it’s open ceiling. At least a dozen people, with bunches of different kinds of clothing mingled under that blue sky.  “Woah, what the hell?”

 

Francis crossed his arms over his chest, one sandaled foot tapping against the gravel. “It is an offense against nature. It is hideously loud. They argue endlessly.”

 

“Uh,” Duo said, “I was expecting that dude Alexander and his damn horse again. Why is this space so popular?”

 

“I’m a priest, not an alchemist,” Francis snapped. “Make them go away, please?”

They weren’t the only ones that moved by blinking and suddenly there was a woman in front of them, leaning close enough to Duo that he had to lean back and give her stink eye in hope of getting her to back off. Petite, but curvy, her hair was pulled up into a messy, curly bun and she wore a top with more bows than could be easily counted, but pants she’d clearly nicked from some seventeenth century sailor. “Well, now,” she said in a beautiful cultured voice. “You are interesting.”

 

Duo didn’t even bother unleaning back when she took a step back. Violet eyes watched her as if she were the embodiment of all things cultural and money that he didn’t understand and didn’t like.  “Who the hell are you?”

 

With an elegant shift of her hips, she held out an elegant hand, wrist lifted, fingers poised, as she were expecting him to kiss the backs of her fingers. “I am Madame de Pompadour. You have eyes that are beautiful as the stars which I can no longer see.”

 

Duo swallowed as he felt the blood run from his face. “I’m married.”

 

“Why so am I! I’m still the King’s Mistress. Joy is beyond the law. Are you going to chase me away,  Monsieur le Dieu de la Mort? ” She rested a hand on her hip, pale blue eyes watching him, inviting him.

 

Duo coughed, lips twitching. It wasn’t that he was attracted to her, but she was like.. royal in ways that he’d never contemplated before. There was power in her that did not understand democracy and expected those around her to be better than they had been only due to having been in her presence. His lip twitched. “Look, yer buggin Francis. Can ya just be a little quieter?”

 

Pompadour turned subtly to face Francis. Looking innocent as spun sugar, she touched the tip of her finger to her lower lip, letting her lips part just slightly. “Francis... is it the religoius debates or the orgies that bother you more?”

 

As Duo was saying woah under his breath, Francis’ hand waving turned into arm waving and then he was pacing around them in an agitated and kind of way, his frazzled dark hair getting more so. “You distress those under my care! Woman! You have no shame! You have no sense of your place in the world!”

 

Those elegant fingers reached to one of the bows on her bodice, pulling at the ends ever so slowly, making the loops smaller and smaller.  

 

This nearly gave Francis whiplash as he kept looking, looking away, looking. 

 

“I don’t think the animals mind. Some of the ones from Rome seem quite interested.” The bow gave with a slight pop at the end. 

 

“So! Francis,” Duo said, throwing an arm around his shoulder and turning them both back towards Francis’ hut. “Let’s see if we can move your place! Your friends will always find you!”

 

Pain twisted Duo’s heart like a combination lock and his being flew apart like leaves blowing back into a storm. 

 

“You’ll find me, right?”

 

Duo nodded even though his breath was gone. Pouring back into his Earthly body was always more vivid than moving into Purgatory and he screamed. Everything felt so bright, so hot. The needle sliding into his arm. Heero’s incomprehensible voice saying something comforting and, then he just floated on that warm connection to Heero. He was here. They were here. This is where he was meant to be.

 

“Sleep just a little longer,” Heero urged. “Everything will be okay.

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh.  
> My.

Not Quite Single 9/?  
by Max  
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the Marvel Universe... and I so did not know that Bucky Barnes was sleeping with Dr. Strange. I was as shocked as Steve and Heero were....

Notes: I just have these scenes in my mind. This story has gotten away from me, honestly. Perhaps I’ll rewrite it when I get to the end, make it smoother and better. This story is related to And All The Things That Matter and Intoxicating Cookies.

The source of the banging didn’t take Steve long to find. Standing in the doorframe, one foot in the bridge and one foot in the hallway like he hadn’t quite gotten there yet, he just stood there, a hand slowly going to cover his mouth.  
The world had definitely shown him some things. Until that moment, watching Johann Schmidt rip his own face off had been pretty much the pinnacle of the fantastic. In his mind, in the voice of a charming and clever girl, he heard Alice admonish, “There’s no use trying. One can’t believe impossible things.”

That had been a lovely book. The elderly lady who lived two doors down had asked him to read it to her when he was just into high school. Perfectly rational book, really, with a nice English girl. 

So there was a windshield, sort of thing, like on a car, but bigger and endless blackness beyond. After a second of focusing on the blackness, Steve worried that maybe this whole thing was like Charon’s ship and he was being ferried across the Styx, somehow. Neither Charon nor death explained the mermaid with two great big glowing jellyfish hovering over her shoulders.

She was a pretty girl, light brown hair, blue eyes, no shells where there should have been shells, though that realization sent vibrant pink up Steve’s cheeks. She smiled and waved.  
His breath froze up just as bad as it had when he was in the ice himself and he ducked back out of the bridge, back to the wall, head light. 

Then the boy, the one with the very nice, very small odd little animals in his pocket came running up, dragging a hose of some kind. “Hey! Help me!”

“Sure son,” Steve said, feeling much more comfortable with this task. The mermaid had to have been an hallucination, right along with gills in the side of the purple boy’s neck. That made sense. Hallucinations. “What can I do?”

“Well, this here’s the blast hose and Ima take out the main window so Auntie Lena can take over the ship’s systems and lift us. Ya know, afore mah real dad eats us.”

Steve pressed back against the wall just a bit, ignoring the mermaid banging on the window. “Have you read Alice In Wonderland?”

“I got the movie.” 

“There’s a movie?”

“Yeah. You gonna help me?”

“I’m not sure that taking out part of a submarine is a good idea. Won’t it just fill up with water?”

The kid rolled his eyes. “Course not.”

“Uh, uh,” Steve said, not wanting his Hell to be kissed by Bucky Barnes and then drowned by mermaid and a boy. “Maybe we should talk to Mr. Yuy or Mr. Barnes about this.”  
This look of utter innocence came over the boy’s face, like he just hadn’t thought of that. “Oh! Great! I’ll wait right here and you go do that!”

“Good, good,” Steve said, palms pressing against the air like he was closing some overstuffed suitcase. “Don’t go in there. There’s a lady, and she hasn’t fully dressed yet.”

“Yeah, okay,” Junior said, his expression still looking so innocent and pure. 

“Good, that’s good,” Steve said. “I’ll be right back, okay? Maybe your dad’s awake.”

“He’s not,” Junior said, now looking a bit bored. “I’ll wait, okay?”

“Okay,” Steve agreed. Being from Brooklyn, he had to admit that busting out a window on a submarine sounded like a bad idea. It was perfectly good common sense that you don’t do that. 

It wasn’t like the little ship was huge, so a couple moments later he was back at the medical bay. 

So there had to be a hierarchy for these things. 

There were places that were better than Brooklyn, though Steve couldn’t really name them, but they would be at one end. 

Then there would be Brooklyn, dirty, loud, normal.  
Tiny animals would be next. 

Boys with gills in their throats and glowing purple eyes. 

Mermaids.

Then there was James Buchanan Barnes in slacks and a tie, holding onto some guy’s hand with both of his hands. The guy in question would have been this end of the mermaid anyway as he was all silver, though now he was on the inside of some kind of containment cylinder, both silver feet on the wall, hand pushing against it, howling silently as he tried to pull the arm that Bucky held back into the cylinder. Then was the Jap with his tie tucked neatly in his white shirt. He held one of the silver man’s fingers, making sawing motions with what Steve refused to identify as a bone saw. 

Steve coughed, then squeaked, “Are you cutting his finger off?”

Bucky looked back of his shoulder, smiled this huge grin that did not read as nearly as innocent on a full grown man as it did on a boy. “Hey, Steve.” 

Heero, who had blue eyes, even though he was Japanese, (Things had changed a lot since 1941.) glared with hatred at Steve. “Tissue sample.” 

Steve swallowed hard. 

The silver man looked at him pleadingly, pulling off innocent victim much better than Bucky or Junior. 

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Steve squeaked. “Maybe we should wait for help.”

“I called someone,” Bucky said, “but he hasn’t responded yet. He usually just loves all the weird shit.”

“Perhaps we should give him a little more time. I don’t think the silver man wants to have his finger cut off.”

“Perhaps,” Heero snapped, “He shouldn’t have killed Hilde and framed Duo for murder. I only want the tissue sample so I can figure out how to kill him.”

“Oh,” Steve said, “my.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we get to an end. It surprised me a lot! I will likely do other stories with these guys though.

Not Quite Single 10/10

by Max

 

disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing, Marvel Universe, or the Greek Pantheon, but then who owns gods, really. I also don’t own Poe or Tennyson, but that goes back to who can own the gods.

  
  
  


“Oh, shit,” Duo said, a hand squeezing his jaw, squishing up his mouth. “My life has gone to shit.”

 

The three of them lay there at the edge of world’s watching the drama unfolding on Duo’s ship. 

 

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting,” Edgar said softly. 

 

Jeanne reached over Duo’s shoulder and gave him a shove. “Don’t quote yourself, Eddy. It’s gauche.”   
  


Duo squished down a little bit. “Come on! I’m watching Heero.”

 

“A task you would do well to observe as well, Madame. Perhaps you would be less the such an expert upon all things gauche.”

 

Below them, as if they were looking down from the upper bunk bed, Heero and Bucky were working with Mercury. They had his through the barrier, Bucky holding it as secure as possibly as Heero held one of those silver fingers out to work on. 

 

Steve had appeared in the door, which made Duo’s forked ass twing, even though he wasn’t actually in a physical body and wasn’t going to feel any actual physical pain. The man looked so very innocent and pure, but maybe because of the electrified fork he’d taken to the ass, Duo didn’t feel in sync with Steve being this pure hero man. “So,” Duo said, inching just a little closer, chin on his wrists as he watched the action unfold, “If HE”S Captain America, shouldn’t he be black or something? I mean, he looks like a fuckin’ Nazi. Wasn’t America, back in the day about you know, everyone having a chance? So like shouldn’t the hero be a black woman?”

 

Edgar and Jeanne looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.  She sighed, “That’s like saying a person from L2 should be president of the ESUN because diversity. The world doesn’t work like that.”

 

Edgar gave him a dour and serious look that Duo could never decide if it was serious or some form of humor. “All is Death! Death is equality.”

 

“Ah still don’t like’im,” Duo grumbled. “He’s a self righteous dick. I can’t believe Hilde is dead. Like, what the fuck!? I don’t know how to make that right.”

  
  


“Well,” a new voice said, “To start with, you have to respect everyone’s choices.”

  
  


“Da fuck Ah do,” Duo grumbled, looking back over his shoulder at the new comer for a moment before back at Heero, squinting to really try to understand.. “Oh shit, what is Heero trying to do?”

  
  


At that moment, Steve pointed accusingly at Heero and Bucky, finger shaking in indignation. “What do you think you’re doing? Why are you cutting his finger off?”

  
  


“Fuck yeah, he is,” Duo said with satisfaction.

  
  


Heero gave the blond hero boy a deadpan look, one eyebrow raising. “Tissue sample.”

  
  


“But what if you hurt him, kill him. Did you think about that?” Steve said, in a lectury kind of voice, a voice use to being the face of all things good to wide eyed little boys.

  
  


Heero pointed a small and bloody bonesaw at Steve. “He killed Hilde. He framed Duo for murder. He tried to steal my skin to commit further fraud on Duo. I’m taking the tissue sample to find the best way to kill him. It’s probably going to hurt him.”

  
  


Duo grinned dreamily. “Isn’t Heero splendid?!”

 

“Just like one of Eddie’s poems. I don’t think that boy has ever heard of Jesus!”

 

“He’s a historian, so I guess he has,” Duo pointed out. 

 

“Perhaps,” Barack said, also a little lectury, but less irritatingly, “You could consider getting back in your body and intervening. Torture and murder go against true American values. We have talked about how using your talents to help people is good for you and for the world.” 

 

Duo rolled over, staring up at the confident and elegant man holding what seemed to be a Japanese style bento box.  He stared back at those kind, but unrelenting brown eyes for a moment before covering his face with his hands. “Oh, maann. I know.” He scrubbed his face for a moment, then peaked back at the former president. “So. I think things are going to go, like permanent and I’m scared.” Tears swelled up at the edge of violet eyes. “Have you ever felt like you had to do something and there wasn’t going to be any coming back from it?” 

 

Barack squatted down, held out his hand. “Yes,” he said as Duo’s hand took his and he pulled him up. “Acting from a place of compassion and reason is always the right choice. It is the only acceptable choice.” 

 

Still holding the ex-president's hand, Duo blinked and sent tears down his face. “I’ve seen so much, watched civilizations rise and fall, but I would give everything for this.”

 

“Love is the most powerful force in any universe,” Barack said softly. 

 

“Are you going to come with me,” Duo asked, meaning back into a mortal life.

 

“Oh goodness no,” Barack said, holding out the lunch that Michelle had made. “Michelle would seriously kill me deader than dead if I tried. We’re happy here.” 

 

“I might not be able to come visit anymore,” Duo said, “And I’m sorry ‘bout that.”

 

“Sometimes,” Barack said, giving Duo’s hand a squeeze. “When we have more power than those around us, we sometimes can think that we control everything. That’s never been true for anyone and it’s not true for you. God takes care of us all, in this universe or any other, so you’ll come back to us here when he brings you. I know things can look overwhelming and that we’re alone, but we’re not. God is with us all.”

 

“There’s a part of me that’s lived like five billion years, and neither of us ain’t never seen no gods.”

 

“You don’t have to see God,” Barack said kindly, “It is God that does the seeing.”

 

Then there was a scream and a bit of oxidized air as Heero ran through the barrier into Purgatory. He screamed again, spun around, and staggered a bit. 

 

Duo rolled back over and looked down into his ship.  Bucky stared at the container where Mercury was slipping into a Heero suit. Somehow, Mercury had pulled Heero into the containment field. 

 

Steve was screaming, hands over his head, this mix of disgust and horror on his face. Duo snickered, satisfied with the blond hero being faced with shit he couldn’t solve. 

 

Bucky had placed an outbound call, shoulders hunched, words desperate, “So! Stephen! Yeah, yeah, it’s me. I know I wasn’t supposed to call again unless it was the end of the world. So about that, yeah, no, no, Heero’s not here now. Maybe you could please come help me out, please?”

 

“Fine!” Stephen appeared out of nowhere, both his hand and his cape smacking at Bucky’s hand when he reached for him, but Mercury had quickly taken his attention, “Look at you! Aren’t you interesting!”

 

Mercury looked up at the newcomer with as much feigned innocence as one could get while wearing a Heero skin, squatting down over the remains, a bit of stringy thigh in his mouth as he chewed. 

 

Stephen rubbed his jaw, squinting as he looked around. “But you’re not the most powerful thing here, are you?”

 

“Hello,” Steve said, voice wavering as he held out his hand to shake, “I’m Steve Rogers.”

 

Stephen shook his hand with absent politeness. “See, Bucky? I told you he was alive!” 

 

All of his attention was on Duo’s unbreathing body. “What are you?”

 

“But Heero!” Bucky squeaked, “Help Heero!”

 

Stephen turned to look at Bucky, looked at the heap of meat in the containment field, then back at Bucky. Summoning up a bit of old fashioned medical practice he said, with a straight and calm face, as if he were just delivering an undesirable prognosis. “I’m afraid chances of recovery are slim, at best.”

 

Back in Purgatory, Heero and Duo sort of gravitated towards each other. Duo rested his hands on Heero’s shoulders and smiled with so much love, even as tears slipped down his cheeks. “There might be some things I didn’t mention.”

 

“What happened?” Heero said, swallowing as he reached over to gently wipe a tear away “Why are you crying? I was.. I was trying do something. I was wrong. I’ll follow you where you want to go.”

 

“No,” Duo said, turning to kiss Heero’s fingers. “I was wrong. I just have this bad understanding of time, cuz I’m kinda the God of Death and I’ve been alive for like five billion years.”

 

“Oh,” Heero said, nodding as if that made any fucking sense at all. 

 

“So, I’m gonna do something though, Heero, and I’m scared, so like be nice to me okay?”

 

“Of course,” Heero said. “Don’t go away from me though, please? I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

 

“No, no, no,” Duo said, closing to brush his lips over Heero’s lovingly, lightly. “Look, we don’t have much time. My life took on meaning when I heard you the first time and I searched for so long for you. I saw suns born and die while I looked for you, but now that I have you, I’m going to be just, just be with you.”

 

“I think.. I’m dead,” Heero said sadly, as if the idea were just now starting to take hold.

 

“Kinda, but I can undo that. But that’s it, after that, it won’t be me anymore, just Duo, and maybe a little echo of me, so before that happens, I just want you to know that I love you, that I have loved you for longer than a sun can live and I will always love you.”

 

“What do you mean,” Heero said, confused. 

 

“It’s not important,” Duo said, smiling, a grin taking the place of his fear. “I can do this. Look! I want you to meet some friends of mine. They’re coming with us. So this here is Eddie! And Jeanne! Solo! You made it!”

 

Solo, still as young as he had been when he died, smiled shyly and reached out to shake Heero’s hand. “I found a friend of yours,” Solo said and Hilde appeared, looking sheepish. 

 

Duo threw himself around her, holding her tight. “Hil! God, I’m so glad to see you! Will you come back now?”

 

“Can you do this thing? Can you really do this thing?”

 

“I can,” Duo said firmly, then lost his breath as if someone had gut punched him. His face twisted up and he made an inelegant squeaking snort.

 

In the med bay, Stephen repeated his command, “Come forth!”

 

As close to his natal form as the universe would allow, a soft glowing, ephemeral form rose from Duo’s still body. Uncountable tentacles came into being, shifted to other beingness, but at the center floated a half sphere of breathable crystal, amethyst  and sapphire vibrated very gently. It rose completely free of Duo’s body, separating fully for the first time since coming to his universe and finding him as a dead child. 

 

There was a nearly unbearable loneliness in the separation, a longing for home that he had not felt even as his mother star died. He wanted cookies and movie night with Heero, the feel of Heero’s fingers on the back of his neck, the weight of his son in his arms, the joyful squeals at Christmas time, and the splendid ocean of Earth that was so near to his mother ocean that he sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. He wanted things with a power that cried and begged at him. 

 

The many strands of his being braided together, weaving a much more human form, though he still stared at the world from a thousand tiny eyes, only managing to mimic what a human eye could do. 

 

The man who had summoned him looked like he’d swallowed a bee, and the ancient one giggled from a mouth of dark red vortex, lips edged with black tips of possibility. 

 

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Stephen said cautiously, “But what, exactly, are you?”

 

“I am We,” he said voice echoing through the little ship, reaching in the cold ocean beyond like sound tentacles, swirling in the cold, singing to all the life there. “I am Duo. I am Shinigami.” 

 

“I see,” Stephen said, as Shinigami sort of roiled forward, movement like he was carried forward with boiling possibilities in time. “Are you a threat to this world?”

 

“No,” Shinigami said, his face now much more beautiful, lips read, only slightly edged with the darkness of eternity and hunger. “I love this world. You sing such an interesting flavor! I wish I had more time to know you, Steefen.”

 

“We can take some time,” Stephen said. “Where are you from?”

 

“Come in the water with me,” he said, voice echo-y, audible and not, as it set everyone’s hair to standing on end. “I cannot stay to explain though. Here though, I will give you the song of my folk. Listen and honor the lives of love gone,” Shinigami said, his hand rolling out, unfolding like a flower to the sun, revealing a small black pebble. “Take it. I have so little time.”

 

“Thank you,” Stephen said, lifting the pebble, “How do I use it?”

 

“Water,” Shinigami said, but he was already moving to the side, sliding through the ship’s corridor more like a glittering jewel toned mudslide than a man. When he found Junior, he moved up behind him with all silence, watching him, treasuring every last moment with him, before the boy turned and gasped. A tendril reached out to touch the boy’s forehead, leaving a small lavender dot in the center.

 

Junior gapped, a hand moving to touch the dot. “Pretty,” he said of the swirling, falling being that already moved away from him. 

 

Gone only seconds, he was careful not to look at Heero’s ruined body, or the bloody mouth of the creature that looked like Heero. 

 

A sea flower grew thick and the size of a man’s head, it popped sending pollune against and into containment field. Mercury left Heero’s skin behind as he was immediately sent to Purgatory in the skin of a long dead Roman soldier. Atticus roared, smelling his enemy. 

 

With a human like hand, Shinigami brushed his fingers over Duo’s lips, even as breath sucked back into Duo, Shinigami was gone. 

 

There was a series of pops as Heero, Edgar, Jeanne, Hilde, and Solo all walked back into the mortal world. 

 

“Oh god,” Duo groaned, holding his head, “What the fuck?”

 

“My goodness,” Stephen said. “That was extraordinary.”

 

The ship’s system was already compensating for Duo’s headache and all the emotional pain he’d been carrying want away as if it just didn’t matter when Heero wrapped him in his arms and held him tight, as if he were the most precious treasure in all the universes. 

 

“We’re still fucking sinking,” Bucky complained loudly. 

 

“Why so we are,” Stephen said. “Come then! Let’s everyone go to my place. I have so much to ask you!” He opened a portal and shooed them all through.  

 

Junior grabbed onto Hilde, climbing up on her back like it was something he’d always done. “What do you mean I have a son,” she said. 

 

He batted at her head. “You’re so funny!”

 

Heero carried Duo who was already complaining about his ship, but Heero promised they’d salvage it, later, after everyone was dry and safe, which Duo accepted and gave in with a, “Fine! I’m 

 

As Heero looked back through the portal, just a tiny second before it closed, he was sure he the flicker of violet, a ripple of energy, but then ship was sinking down into the cold deep ocean. It couldn’t have been anything there.  
  
  


 

 

hungry!”

 


End file.
